whitesail

Chapter 31

Weapons are the tools of violence;
all decent men detest them.

He enters a battle gravely,
with sorrow and with great compassion,
as if he were attending a funeral.

Sometimes the wisest words fly in the face of conventional wisdom and always contradict our fears. That is why it is so hard to believe them when we need to believe in them the most.

I love the line “His enemies are not demons but human beings like himself.” The first step in starting a major conflict is to convince the people that there actually is an enemy and that they are demons. Once you have successfully demonized a group, it’s okay to kill ‘em, right?

and from Chapter 60

Give evil nothing to oppose
and it will disappear by itself.

I don’t know how to describe the feeling of complete awe when I read this line. It is a Truth of the highest order, this I know. I can feel it in my bones. It requires letting go of the ego completely (an impossibility for me most days) and a very quiet mind/heart. There is so much I want to say about this, but I don’t have the words. I guess that’s why we still read Lao Tzu and I’m, well, me…..